Ashes
by Lyselle
Summary: He is a forgotten hero of war, the kind who sacrificed everything and got almost nothing in return. Post-Mockingjay, one-shot.


**Disclaimer: I am not Suzanne Collins and I don't own the Hunger Games or the song 'Savior' by Rise Against (lyrics quoted).**

* * *

><p><strong><em>Savior<em>**

* * *

><p><em>It kills me not to know this,<em>

_But I've all but just forgotten,_

_What the color of her eyes were,_

_And her scars or how she got them._

* * *

><p>Gale jolts up in bed, the mattress creaking ever so slightly in the dark room. His wife sleeps soundly next to him, her usually hard features soft under the weightlessness of sleep. He strokes her hair once and when she doesn't stir, he gets out of bed and pushes open the curtains, allowing moonlight to filter into the room. Looking outside, Gale reassures himself that he is safe, his children are safe, andhis wife is safe. Everything is not on fire; no one's going to rip hisfamily away from him.<p>

It was just another nightmare.

They always creep up on him this time of year, summer, when it's the little blond girl's birthday. Just as he thinks the nightmares have finally gone away, they hit him with full force, showing him fiery, ashen images of a little blonde girl burning alive, while her older sister watches. The nightmares don't let him forget. They show him all of his wrong-doings bundled into one large package**;** a package that he'd rather not receive.

Gale steps out into the hallway, quietly walking towards his daughter's room, still not having lost his hunter's tread. He opens her door a crack, sticking his head inside to check on her. Only when he sees the sheets rising and falling as she breathes is he certain that his daughter truly is alive. He moves onto his two sons' rooms, his sharp gray eyes scanning the shadowed figures for their breathing.

He wanders into the kitchen, and a wooden clock sitting on the counter top informs him that it's 2am. Gale knows he should try to go back to sleep because he has work the next day, but instead he puts a kettle on the stove, making a cup of mint tea for himself. He sips the tea quietly, his mouth not burning because he had become accustomed to the scalding hot liquid a long time ago. While he sips, he thinks. He thinks and remembers.

He remembers a little blonde girl, burning alive. He remembers his home, swallowed by flames right in front of his eyes. But most of all, he remembers the girl with the bow, disintegrating into ashes.

It's no wonder he's been wary of fire for years now, although he never mentions it.

Gale closes his eyes and rests the back of his head on the wooden chair, letting himself truly remember her for the first time. He lets the memories wash over him. The good ones, where her gray eyes (was it gray?) would light up with laughter as he told her a mundane joke, and the bad memories, when she looked at him with such disdain, wondering if he was even human. Sometimes, he wondered that about himself, too.

He used to know all about her. He could name all of her scars, physical and emotional, he could tell you her favorite color, he could tell you what her desires were, he could tell you what her wishes were.

Not anymore.

(Not for a long, long time.)

* * *

><p><em>As the telling signs of age rain down,<em>

_A single tear is dropping._

_Through the valleys of an aging face,_

_That this world has forgotten._

* * *

><p>The mug of tea is almost drained as he remembers the ruckus he caused when he first moved to District 2.<p>

_Oh, look, isn't that Katniss Everdeen's cousin?_

_Hey, wasn't that guy in the rebel propos?_

_I heard Katniss Everdeen and him weren't actually related._

_It's nice to have someone famous in District 2._

_He designed weapons for the rebels, right?_

Gale has a whole box of recognition awards from the war sitting in the attic, doing nothing but collecting dust. Once or twice, one of his sons opened up the box to proudly display the awards to his friends. But a long, stern look from his wife startled his son, and the little boy understood that the awards were not something to be toyed with.

Or be proud of.

Over the years, the flow of awards slowly decreased, as the memory of Gale Hawthorne also faded.

(He is a forgotten hero of war, the kind who sacrificed everything and got almost nothing.)

* * *

><p><em>There is no reconciliation,<em>

_That will put me in my place_

_And there is no time like the present,_

_To drink these draining seconds._

* * *

><p>"Dad?"<p>

His daughter, the eldest of his three children, stands in the doorway, sleepily rubbing her eyes. Her black hair falls around her face in an askew halo, and her gray eyes are cloudy and dull from drowsiness.

"What's wrong?" Gale asks her gently, "Sit down. I'll make you some tea." He still has a fierce tenderness for children, developed from all of those years looking after his own three younger siblings.

"Just worried about tomorrow's test. I can't graduate if I don't pass it," she sighs, silently walking across the kitchen and pulling out a chair.

Oh, yes. Graduation. Gale Hawthorne is older than he likes to believe. His daughter is about to graduate from school, and his sons are only two and three years away from finishing school themselves. He wonders what he'll do without the kids around. The house'll be too quiet. Too much spare time for thinking.

Gale brings the tea to a boil and pours it into another mug, stirring in two spoonfuls of sugar. He sets the mug in front of the gray-eyed girl. She picks it up gingerly, delicately blowing on the tea to cool it down before taking a tentative sip. No more words are exchanged between the pair, and after a little while the girl gets up auietly and pads out of the kitchen.

"Good luck on your test," Gale tells his daughter, giving her a genuine smile. He hopes that she can pass with a high enough score to do whatever she likes. A choice that he wasn't ever given.

"Thanks," she says. "Good night, Dad."

_Dad._

Gale still feels a pang of affection whenever he hears one of his kids call him Dad. He never thought this would be possible, having kids in a completely safe country, not having to worry about them being reaped. Of course, he had thought about having kids, but not like this.

(Not with anyone but Katniss Everdeen, probably the only girl in all of Panem who was out of his reach.)

* * *

><p><em>But seldom do these words ring true,<em>

_When I'm constantly failing you._

_Walls that we just can't break through,_

_Until we disappear._

* * *

><p>The kitchen is empty and still once Gale's daughter leaves, Gale himself also seems to melt into the shadows.<p>

He closes his eyes and allows himself to explore the most painful area of his memories, a point in time he hasn't touched on in years, ever since he emerged from the depths of his post-war depression.

The unbecoming of Gale Hawthorne and Katniss Everdeen.

He doesn't exactly know when their relationship started unraveling. It doesn't even matter now, but often he still wonders. Maybe it was right after she came back from the Games, or when he kissed her for the first time, or when she first saw his designs.

All that matters is that it happened.

The unease between them grew and grew until it formed an almost physical barrier, but neither Gale or Katniss ever acknowledged it. The two kids who had once been thrown together by the need to survive, didn't need each other in order to do so. At least, not as much as they once did. Both of them were too scared to actually talk it out, which admittedly may have helped, but neither were very good with words and so they let their dwindling relationship be, assuming that it would heal on its own.

. . . But then that bomb fell on Prim, burning her alive, at the same time turning the connection they had into ashes.

Of course Katniss was furious, so Gale left her, mainly because he didn't know what else to do.

(Katniss now needed another to survive, but Gale still needed Katniss.)


End file.
